Through the Past Darkly: Reflections on 'UFC 152: Jones vs. Belfort'

The UFC made an interesting choice during Saturday night’s pay-per-view broadcast – and one I find myself still puzzling over a couple days later. As the main event neared, we got a glimpse of Joe Rogan interviewing UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones about, among other things, his arrest for DUI last spring.

It was surprising not only because the UFC isn’t known for highlighting its athletes’ issues outside the cage (for instance, if you only watched events and didn’t read MMA websites, would you even know that testosterone-replacement therapy was a major issue?), but also because Rogan repeatedly put forth the hypothesis that there was a direct correlation between Jones’ DUI and fans’ negative perception of him. To hear Rogan tell it, one caused the other. Things were going great, then Jones drove his Bentley into a telephone pole and suddenly he was a bad guy. Maybe that’s genuinely how Rogan perceived it, but it doesn’t seem anywhere close to accurate.

The way I remember it, Jones had his problems getting fans to like him well before the DUI incident. Yes, he got booed at the UFC 152 weigh-ins in Toronto, but he also got booed at the UFC 140 weigh-ins in the same city five months before his DUI. Some of his haters might have taken way too much joy in the news of his arrest, but I doubt that those same people were ardent fans before he wrecked his car after a boozy night in upstate New York. In fact, I doubt very many people who were Jones fans before became Jones haters afterwards. That’s just not usually how it works in MMA, where fans seem to care less about your criminal record than about how you come off in interviews.

Speaking of which, while Rogan seemed to have the cause-and-effect wrong, Jones didn’t exactly help himself when he opened his mouth to talk about it. He claimed the DUI “set [him] free” from the force of expectations. Driving drunk was a bad idea, he said, but at least “now people know, yeah, I will drink on occasion, and I am a 25-year-old guy who does dumb stuff.” So…it was a good thing, then?

I get that nobody’s perfect and we all make mistakes and the important thing is learning from them and you can go ahead and insert your own cliche here, but I’m not sure it’s a great idea to go on TV and talk about how a car accident you got into while intoxicated was a liberating experience. For most people, that’s the kind of thing that gets them locked up rather than set free.

But enough about interviews. Now on to the actual fights. We all still remember what those are, right?

When getting armbarred is sort of a good thing, and when it’s not

You don’t have to like Jones, but you do have to respect him for fighting through that armbar. When most people feel their elbow joints going snap, crackle and pop, they think about tapping. Not Jones. He said he was waiting for his arm to break, and honestly, so was I. Jones held on, got out of it, and then got busy elbowing Vitor Belfort in the face with his good arm before ultimately exacting a little joint lock payback of his own.

While it was careless of him to get caught in such a straight-up, very little set-up, basic jiu-jitsu armbar to begin with, at least it gave him a chance to prove to himself and to fans that he’s not going to freak out the first time things don’t go his way. He’s been so dominant thus far in his career that we’ve haven’t seen how he deals when he’s in danger. As it turns out, he can deal. Pretty freaking well, in fact.

Of course, as every white belt in a jiu-jitsu class learns, there’s a price to pay for being a tough guy. Jones showed up to the post-fight press conference talking about possible nerve damage, so maybe the full bill for his first-round mistake is still forthcoming. But hey, what’s that he was saying about experience being a great teacher? I think maybe there was also something in there about generals, but whatever, you get the point. If he didn’t know before that even 9-1 favorites can get caught when they get sloppy, he knows now.

What’s your beef with the flyweights, anyway?

UFC president Dana White says that if you were among those in attendance in Toronto on Saturday night who booed the flyweight title fight between new 125-pound champ Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez, then he wants you to put your money away and never give him another cent of it. Same goes for those who ripped the fight on Twitter while watching at home.

“Don’t ever buy another [pay-per-view],” White said after UFC 152 had concluded. “I don’t want your money. You’re a moron, you don’t like fighting, you don’t appreciate great talent or heart, if you didn’t like that flyweight fight.”

I wouldn’t go quite that far. I don’t think he would either, if it really came down to it. I think no matter what the bossman might say once his blood gets up and his forehead veins start to bulge, he’d rather have you paying and booing than not paying at all. Still, I see his point.

If you felt the need to boo that fight, which was a speedy, technical, non-stop affair with a little bit of everything, I have to wonder what elements of fighting you do like. Actually, no I don’t. I already know. You like knockouts. You like blood. You frequently shout, “Stand ’em up!” as soon as the fight hits the mat. There’s a good chance you also catcall the ring girls every single time they make the trip around the Octagon.

My point is, when we go to fights, or even to bars or friend’s houses or to the bushes outside of strangers’ apartments – wherever it is you watch fights – we all get to choose what kind of experience it is. By booing two guys who are doing as much and staying as busy as Johnson and Benavidez were, you are choosing to make the experience dumber for all of us. You are kind of embarrassing those around you, and they probably wish you’d stop.

You don’t have to. If you paid for your ticket, you have the right to express yourself when you feel you aren’t getting your money’s worth. But why? Because you’re hoping the flyweights will hear you and decide to just stand in front of each other trade punches in order to make you happy? That’s about as likely as the ring girls hearing you and deciding they should really get to know you better. The flyweight title bout may not have been the greatest fight in UFC history, but it was pretty good. I’m sure there were plenty of people in the Air Canada Centre who thought so, at least when they weren’t too busy being annoyed by all the idiots who just wanted to see someone lose consciousness.

Michael Bisping’s case for a title shot is something short of a slam dunk

Thanks largely to his takedowns and his success in avoiding a brawl with Brian Stann, Bisping notched a decision win over a very tough middleweight contender. What he didn’t do was make it absolutely impossible for the UFC to continue overlooking him in the title fight sweepstakes. Bisping was effective, though not spectacular. For all his talk about how willing he is to stand with Anderson Silva, he sure seemed in no hurry to do the same with Stann. His recent performances are such that, if the UFC really wanted to, it could give him a title shot. It’s just that, until he goes out there and finishes a top 185-pounder, it doesn’t really have to.
Cub Swanson’s sneaky punching power

There was something comically violent about Swanson’s Knockout of the Night finish against Charles Oliveira. The right hand landed and looked brutal, but Oliveira took it well…right up until his legs finally got the message that all was not right in his brain. It’s the second straight KO award for Swanson, so obviously the guy can swat. Maybe it just takes a little while for others to realize it.

Elsewhere in the land of post-fight bonus awards…

T.J. Grant and Evan Dunham absolutely earned their money with a Fight of the Night that quickly turned into a contest to see who cared less about his own face, but I can’t help but feel like the Submission of the Night bonus missed its most deserving target when it flew straight over Vinny Magalhaes and landed in Jones’ lap. I get it, the main event always gets a little more bonus love, but for sheer aesthetic beauty, I think Magalhaes had him beat. Igor Pokrajac didn’t make things any better for himself by going on Twitter and complaining that he hadn’t come in search of a grappling tournament, which is kind of a silly thing to complain about after shooting for a takedown on a jiu-jitsu specialist. Still, let’s not overlook Magalhaes’ nifty little maneuver. If he can get the rest of his game as sharp as his submissions, he might be here to stay this time.

A total of 26 fighters got their chance to shine on Saturday as part of UFC 190 at Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena. Now that UFC 190 is in the books, it’s time to commence MMAjunkie’s “Three Stars” ceremony.

The man known for cranking submissions to the point of injury added eye-gouging to his repertoire. But is the controversy of Rousimar Palhares too essential to his bizarre, awful appeal for his employers to take any meaningful action against him?